Spend some time hacking hardware and you’ll eventually render a piece of equipment unusable either by accident or intentionally. Between us, we’ve got decades of bricking experience that we’d like to share. We’ll document the most common ways of temporarily or permanently damaging your hardware and ways to recover, if possible. We’ll also talk about tips on how to avoid bricking your projects in the first place. If you’re getting into hardware hacking and are worried about messing something up, our stories will hopefully prevent you from experiencing the same horrors we did.

Joe Grand, also known as Kingpin, is a computer engineer, hardware hacker, runner, daddy, honorary doctor, TV host, member of L0pht Heavy Industries, and the proprietor of Grand Idea Studio (grandideastudio.com).

Joe FitzPatrick has spent a decade working on low-level silicon debug, security validation, and penetration testing of CPUS, SOCs, and microcontrollers. He develops and delivers hardware security training at https://SecuringHardware.com, including Applied Physical Attacks on x86 Systems. In between, he keeps busy with contributions to the NSA Playset and other misdirected hardware projects, which he presents at all sorts of fun conferences.